Sets out the value of cognitive realism – a convergence between cognitive faculties as they operate in readers’ minds and are evoked in literary texts – for the theoretical and empirical study of literature, taking Kafka’s evocations of vision, imagination, and emotion as the case study. Appraised in Modern Language Review 110(4) as an ‘engagingly written interdisciplinary study’ which presents its main thesis with ‘exemplary clarity’, and makes ‘an important contribution to this area of Kafka studies’.

In this major collaboration with my mother, Sue Blackmore, I’ve taken the lead on fully restructuring and generating much new material for the third edition of the world’s only textbook on the mystery of consciousness, embracing psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and touching on many other fields. (My brother Jolyon Troscianko also created the wonderful illustrations!) On

A selection of chapters and articles on a wide range of cognitive topics, to help literary scholars interested in cognitive approaches orientate themselves in existing scientific and cognitive-humanities research

Presents the findings from the major online survey conducted with Beat, which offer detailed self-report evidence of the links between reading and mental health from nearly 900 respondents, and contradict received wisdom about the types of literary text likely to be most therapeutically beneficial.

Argues for the importance of acknowledging both personal experience and embodiment in understanding the meanings and effects of Kafka’s short story about a man who fasts to death for others’ entertainment.

Sets out the importance of understanding cognition as enactive (i.e. constituted by physical interaction between embodied minds and environments) for appreciating the effects of Kafka’s novel Der Proceß (The Trial) in the contexts of vision and imagination, language, and emotion.

Argues that we need to understand cognition – and vision and imagination in particular – as embodied and enactive to grasp the essence of the ‘Kafkaesque’ as it plays with readers’ experiences of space and time.

Traces the history of professional ways of reading Kafka’s texts, arguing that despite their varied theoretical agendas, they have always been trying to answer the question current cognitive approaches make explicit: what makes reading (Kafka) feel like this?

Brings together personal and scientific perspectives on disordered eating for a readership of sufferers, their friends and families, and others, with 82 posts (including 11 chosen by PT editors as Essential Reads) to date. I engage in detailed dialogue, through blog comments and inquiry-form contact, with numerous readers on a near-daily basis – the blog has so far attracted over 1.7 million all-time views and over 1,500 comments.